Youth Against Climate Change: Cool It

Green Collar Jobs?

I came across this term “Green Collar Jobs” and was curious about what it meant. Do we have “green collar jobs” here in Singapore? The current definition is rather anglo-centric so it got me wondering if there was any chance that this could be applied to perhaps an Asian context…?

This article by Raquel Pinderhughes via UrbanHabitat.org gives a rough idea about what “green collar jobs” entail. The PDF is available here.

Raquel Pinderhughes

Over the next decade, the potential for green collar jobs, which I define as blue-collar work force opportunities created by firms and organizations whose mission is to improve environmental quality, could be very large.1 This is because, despite what is happening at the federal level, many San Francisco Bay Area cities, and the state of California, are proposing and passing policies and programs designed to improve environmental quality. These include policies related to zero waste, energy and water conservation, residential solar energy, whole home performance, local procurement, open space, and strengthening local food systems. In addition, the number of San Francisco Bay Area residents choosing to use their money to buy goods and services from firms and organizations that are improving environmental quality is increasing rapidly. Over time, this combination of factors should result in a significant expansion of local green collar jobs in the area. In order to find out what are the characteristics of green collar jobs? And What factors contribute to the growth and vibrancy of these sectors? I have been interviewing employers who provide green collar jobs to workers in more than 100 local firms/institutions which are producing jobs in 22 specific sectors:

Bicycle repair and bike delivery services

Car and truck mechanic jobs, production jobs, and gas-station jobs related to biodiesel

It is very clear that moving away from polluting work and towards environmentally restorative work will bring significant changes and immediate benefits to workers, communities, and society at large. We need to develop a clearer understanding of what kinds of policies and programs can ensure that green collar jobs are made available to workers with limited initial education and skills, and that these jobs are stable, living wage jobs that provide benefits to workers and their families. Do green collar jobs, in and of themselves, offer workers a supportive work experience that contributes to improvements in quality of life?

Recent research on sustainable agriculture in the U.S. has revealed that although crops are being grown with less toxic inputs, on many of these farms ,workers continue to be terribly exploited. Similarly, some manufacturers producing processed food made with organic ingredients, and some supermarkets known for selling healthy organic food, offer workers part-time work employment in order to avoid providing benefits to workers and, have been involved in union busting. A job designed to improve environmental quality is not guaranteed to be a stable living wage job that provides workers with essential benefits. It is unclear if local green collar jobs will benefit low-income people and families in the Bay Area.

If current employment patterns are any indicator, we should all be concerned about this. Currently, unemployment rates for African American adults and teenagers are more than double the rates for Whites and Asians. Among Latinos, unemployment is worsening among second-generation Latinos.

Although the overall employment rate for Latinos is equal to Whites and Asians, the unemployment rate among native born Latinos is almost twice as high as Whites. Although Asians have lower unemployment rates, Asian workers are concentrated in low-paying manufacturing and service jobs and, like African Americans and Latinos, their rates of poverty are significantly higher than Whites.

What is clear is that people of color and high school graduates are the least advantaged groups in the current labor market. In order to reduce the potential for social inequalities and injustices in the emerging green economy, we need to develop strategies and programs to ensure that workers with limited initial education and skills have access to local green collar jobs. The information I am gathering will be helpful as we take on this challenge.

My preliminary research findings reveal the following: There are many local firms/organizations that offer green collar jobs in the Bay Area. The vast majority of local green collar jobs do not require high levels of education. The majority of workers holding green collar jobs in these 22 sectors obtained their skills on the job or through training paid for by their employers. Employers describe basic work skills of being responsible, being on time, having good communication skills, etc. as the most critical skills for the green jobs they offer. Employers are willing to hire workers with limited initial education and skills.

Public policies are the most important factor contributing to the health and vibrancy of firms/organizations with missions to improve environmental quality. While it is too early to draw definitive conclusions from these preliminary findings, it is possible to make the following generalizations: First, to ensure that green collar jobs provide workers with stable living-wage jobs and benefits, we will need to support living-wage ordinances, long-term hiring contracts, and unionization options. Second, to ensure that green collar jobs are offered to workers with limited initial education and skills, we will need local hiring requirements, training for green collar jobs in high schools, work force training programs, certification programs, matching programs, and employer incentives. Third, if we want green collar jobs, we must support policies designed to improve environmental restoration, quality, and justice.

Endnote

1 I do not include purely administrative white-collar jobs in my definition. Using this admittedly restrictive and narrow definition, there are still a wide range of green job employment opportunities in the San Francisco Bay Area economy.

Professor Raquel Pinderhughes is director of the Urban Studies Program at San Francisco State University where she teaches courses on urban environmental planning and policy. Her most recent book is entitled Alternative Urban Futures: Planning for Sustainable Development in Cities throughout the World (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004). #

What this article made me realise was that the level of awareness about green jobs and the availability of green jobs is very high in Western Countries but not really so for Asian countries. There’s this blog called the GreenCollarBlog which offers information about green jobs and tips about how to find green jobs. They do have occassional articles about Asian Green Collar Jobs but there are still relatively from a Western perspective or based in the U.S.. I managed to find a report done by the Asia Business Council, on addressing Asia’s New Green Job Challenge.

The executive summary below:

The current global economic crisis has led to millions of job losses and likely will lead to more. As businesses and industries restructure, many of these jobs will not be recovered. At the same time,
the world’s top scientists are sounding warnings about urgent environmental concerns, including climate change and limited natural resources to produce energy and provide for the world’s
growing population. Amid these twin crises, governments and businesses around the world are realizing that future economic growth depends on producing less carbon and more jobs. The
announced economic stimulus plans of China, Japan, and Korea contain green initiatives that could potentially generate more than a million green jobs in the next few years. These initiatives
promise to improve real incomes and workers’ quality of life around the world. In the past, Asia has succeeded in creating jobs in carbon-intensive manufacturing industries as well as offshore
services industries, tapping into a vast supply of low-cost labor. What conditions does Asia need to create green jobs for the future, and how well are Asian economies doing on these conditions?

New research by the Asia Business Council provides a preliminary assessment through the creation of a “green jobs index,” which measures current green employment needs, the market
potential of various green industry segments, labor availability for green jobs, and government commitments to green job policies in various Asian economies.

Index results suggest that China possesses the most favorable conditions overall for green job creation, followed by Japan and India, whereas other economies can build on potential in specific
areas. Economies should address specific deficiencies that hinder green job development by identifying business opportunities, improving workforce capability, and implementing coherent
government policies to foster green job growth.#

So perhaps there is a chance that Green Collar Jobs are seeing precedence in Asia but it’s slow compared to Western countries. I suppose the question then is how can we increase the pace of raising awareness about green jobs and to garner enough support from industries to offer such jobs? If you want to learn more about “Green Collar Jobs”, there are a few more blogs I came across.

Like this:

Related

Green collar jobs are also available online. As an example, with the push for everything green, more and more opportunities are showing up for green freelance writers. Also eco-friendly companies who in particular, recognize the environmental impacts of commuting are hiring virtual assistants.

About this blog

Welcome to ECO Singapore’s COOL IT site, where our youth delegation will be sharing our experiences pre, during and post COP21. We will be representing Singapore at these crucial international negotiations in Paris, France between 30 November and 11 December 2015. Do click on the links above to learn more about climate change and our team.

With the urgency to tackle climate change being ever more imperative, we hope to address pertinent issues that affect Singapore, the region and the world at large as we participate at COP21 and come up with our own initiatives. We hope to use this blog as an avenue to a call to action, inspiring others to become agents of change in their own communities and contribute in their own ways. Do use this blog as a platform to voice your say. Stay tuned for content every day!